Ruwanga Samath

Ruwanga Samath (born January 29, 1985), also known as Ru, is a Sri Lankan record producer and the president of The Bird Call Productions. Ru has lived in Los Angeles, CA since December 1997.

Biography

Early life

Ruwanga was born in Sri Lanka. His mother, "Renuka" was a popular Sri Lankan musician. Growing up, Ru was constantly around his mother's events and picked up her love for music. At a young age he started experimenting with the piano, drums, and several other instruments, and found great joy in composing his own music. Due to the country's unstable political atmosphere the family felt it was best to leave and moved to Pasadena, CA when Ru was 12. Ru attended Elliot Middle School and then John Muir High School for two years before moving to La Verne, California, and graduating from Bonita High School. After High School, Ru attended Cal State San Bernardino while continuing to work on his music. He found that demand for his music continued to grow and subsequently made the decision to leave school and focus full-time on his craft.

Career

Since starting the Bird Call Productions in 2003 Ru has done songs for various major artists including Beyoncé Knowles' "Ring the Alarm" remix,^[1] Britney Spears' "Break the ice" remix,^[1] Kelly Rowland's "Work" remix, The Virgins' "Rich Girls" remix, Flo Rida, Ke$ha, and Girlicious.

His work has also been featured in television shows such as Discovery channel's Battleground Earth: Ludacris Vs. Tommy Lee,^[2] and movies such as Saw IV.^[3] The song "Just Another Day", from Saw IV's digital soundtrack earned Ru an L.A. Music Award^[3] for best rock song in a film. The highly anticipated Sony Video Game "The Agency" features another one of Ru's song which was just nominated for a Hollywood Music Award.^[4] Ru also composed and produced the compelling hip hop soundtrack for the 2007 indie documentary "Doubletime".^[5]

2011

2011 has started fast for Ruwanga, as he continues to make his mark on the music scene by continuing to work on many high profile projects. So far in 2011, Ru has already done songs for Morgan Spurlock's "Greatest Movie ever Sold",^[6] the song entitled "CameraBuggin" features Big Boi from the legendary Outkast, as well as Matt & Kim. He has also produced a song for Busta Rhymes, Don Omar and J. Doe called "How we Roll"^[7] for the movie Fast and the Furious 5, the theme song for History Channel show Mounted in Alaska,^[8] and the theme song for the TLC channel's show Unleashed: K9.^[9] featuring Bird Call Recording Artist Greg Cahn from the duo Cahn & Yang.

Obama Campaign

In 2008 Ru donated the song entitled "Make it to the Sun" to democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama's campaign.^[1] "Make it to the Sun" featured Bird Call artists Mo Greene and Maxwell D. The song urged voters to choose Obama if they wanted change.

References